ClickBrain

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed:
You can also bookmark this page:

Excellent points throughout this article. I would like to quote a great deal more, but I would be way beyond fair use on it. If you are hiring folks to provide you with web marketing or any kind of marketing services, then this piece will arm you well for proving the value.

When you’re looking at website operations or online marketing technology solutions, you’re probably already challenging yourself with these types of questions:

• What are the strategic business challenges we are looking to solve with this technology solution?
• What will success look like? Should we save 20 percent with this solution? Should we increase revenue by 10 percent? Or, should our cost per lead go down by a third?
• How much will this particular solution contribute to that particular metric?

Then, if your vendor uses an ROI pitch to sell you the technology solution, challenge them with these questions:

• How does your solution help us deliver against these specific business objectives?
• What are you willing to do to help us achieve these business objectives?
• Can we depend on you to deliver this ROI and help us with the ongoing improvements to either deliver against it or to continually improve on it?

Source: iMedia Connection: Proving ROI Made Simple

Technorati tags: writing, ROI, web marketing, consultant, consulting, web development, project management, new media, interactive

This makes total sense and is something EVERY small business should do. There really is no excuse for missing out on or taking a pass on revenue. There is no better or more cost-effective way for a small business to grow if they consult with the right kind of firm. Yes, I have a personal motivation as a web marketing consultant to advocate for this, but the winners in years to come will be those that learn to maximize their marketing spending and small to medium sized companies will rarely ever have the resources in house to manage all of their SEM, SEO, weblogging, and other lead and customer generation efforts on their own. You snooze. You lose.

Nearly all small businesses have a measurement system in place for their website (though too many aren’t aware of the analytics data available from their web hosting service for no additional cost).

Good to excellent web analytics tools are now available for small businesses for free or at low cost, so no one can say these days, “I can’t afford the software.” In particular, Google Analytics (www.Google.com/analytics/) and ClickTracks (www.clicktracks.com) are within reach of nearly all small businesses.

But small businesses just aren’t able to do much with the data at their fingertips.

Because larger businesses use analytics and testing and small businesses seldom do, the performance gap between large and small business profitability becomes greater every year.<snip>

Source: An Analytics Consulting Model for Small Businesses